Sammy was tired. ‘Dog tired’ his mother used to say. He felt like the double-shifts at the mine were killing him, ‘but the pay was killer,’ he laughed to himself. So, as the late October day stretched into dusk, he wasn’t quite sure that the figure standing by the side of the road had his thumb out or not.
The quaint little town of Mesilla, New Mexico was delighted to finally have a brand-new schoolhouse constructed in 1930. It had five classrooms and was built in territorial-style fashion with adobe bricks lining the structure, finished off with coarse tan stucco.
Enough already! Never in my life
have I heard so much cursing
and complaining, so much rank
self-pitying, so many people
living by their grievances
alone.I get it, times are tough,
but by the gods, can’t we just have
a little music?
Google Maps shows we’ll still be connected by one lengthy interstate. A vertical slash of blacktop for 678 miles. If I don’t turn back. I must not turn back. Spotify is girl-power, the rhythm of the road. Beyonce’s on repeat as I head straight south. I treat the car pedals as a piano’s sustain.
My footsteps defile the creamy-white sand, so smooth, like new-fallen snow. Exploring on foot a dry desert wash: for me, a true winter sport.